The Technomancer Launch Trailer: Get Your Ass To Mars on PC & Consoles

Posted on June 27, 2016 by geelw

With the risky and expensive on a few fronts potential of sending humans to Mars (on a one-way trip, yet!) being a big deal over the past couple of years, it’s clear that entertainment focused on the Angry Red Planet is going to be hot for a while. Fresh from veteran developer Spiders and publisher Focus Home Interactive comes The Technomancer, an action/RPG for PC, PS4, and Xbox One out tomorrow. A prequel to MARS: War Logs, the game looks to add to the lore Spiders set forth in that game while introducing new characters, environments and gameplay to players who buy their ticket to the stars.

I’ve been bonked on the noggin with a review code, so I’m going to be off-planet for a bit. Back with some impressions shortly. Oh, by the way: MARS: War Logs is on SALE on Steam for 75% off. Check it out if your curiosity is piqued. It’s got a few rough edges, but makes for a pretty decent diversion that makes The Technomancer all the more intriguing as a prequel. If the new game is even better, will Spiders go forward or back in the timeline they’ve created? That’s a question for sales figures to partially answer, I’d bet.

The Sword & Sandal Blogathon Kicks Sand in My Mojo-Stopper’s Face

Posted on June 26, 2016 by geelw

Stuff is still slightly bumpy here on a few key levels (I’m having the worst luck with tech in this crazy year of stuff breaking or vanishing), but from the heavens comes some inspiration. THANKS, Debs!. I’ll be ~~doing~~ covering Hundra, Matt Cimber’s underrated 1983 fantasy flick that features an exuberant performance from Laurene Landon in the title role. Keep an eye peeled… or I’ll do it for you, grrr!.

Back in a bit.

Greedy Guns: Give Them All Your Money, This One’s A BLAST

Posted on June 25, 2016 by geelw

Hi! Believe it or not, this is how the game’s demo BEGINS. Wow.

From the crazy must-play demo alone, TioAtum’s in development arcade run ‘n gun Greedy Guns is probably going to be poking into a few “indie game of the week/month/year/whatever” territory as soon as it’s released. Between the super-fast gameplay, colorful cartoon visuals and excellent 360 degree blasting, this one’s got BUY ME stamped all over it.

Don’t believe me? Go try the demo out on the game’s Kickstarter page and you’ll be like my pal Vincent (Zombie Proof) Spencer, who noted “yup, this game is the STUFF” after I sent him a PM on Steam while he was in the middle of playing DOOM (or was it Fallout IV?).

Anyway, Greedy Guns is a fantastic homage to games like Metal Slug, Contra, Metroid, the Castlevania series and the *always* awesome Gunstar Heroes with sharper modern visuals, more exploration elements and what feels like an even higher adrenaline rush as you play. Solo and co-op play is supported and you’ll want to grab a friend (or get outside to make some new ones) because this game is HARD. But it’s also fair in its challenge, once you learn to not get squashed, zapped or otherwise mangled by the assorted baddies trying to do you in.

Hey! Don’t laugh at these guys. They may look sort of cute, but they intend to mean you plenty of harm.

Even if you’re NOT a fan of crowd-funding games, the demo is a must-play because it’s far enough along and fun enough to get you to part with a few bucks just so you can dive in and play the entire thing to the end. The three-man team is really swinging for the fences and the game is one of the best crowdfunded indies I’ve played this year. Take THAT, other games that make promises, deliver no demos and disappoint some… like an anime fan on (oh, you know the rest).

Kate and Bob are waiting. Don’t make them come get you.

Anyway, go support Greedy Guns. That pitch above shows the team knows what it’s doing and how killer their product will be when it’s all done later this year.

Converse All Wah: Shocking New Way To Rock Out

Posted on June 23, 2016 by geelw

All kidding aside (keep reading, it’s coming), I’d love to try a set of these kicks out. Hell, they’ll get me to pick up a guitar again after too long just to see how long I can “play” in my atonal way until the neighbors call to cops because they think someone is boiling a sack of howling piranha. I haven’t owned a pair of Chucks for ages, but these Converse All Wah demoed by Dinosaur Jr’s J Masics (who looks like Dinosaur Sr. these days, but he can rock it harder than the younger set any day of the week) got some of my own parts vibrating giddily. Boom chicka-wah-wahhhhh!

That said, I can only see wearing these indoors or only a dry day outside because of the obviously eeeeeee-lectrifying reason. I’ll let you think about that while I wind up a joke that some of you got already.

Yeah, try playing that star-spangled electric gitbox while wearing these sneaks in the rain and you’ll get maybe get five notes into Jimi Hendrix’ Purple Haze before you’re totally:

(thanks, Imp Awards!) Um… #ScuseMeWhileIKissTheSky

…but without the icky upskirting powers, kid. Just extra crispy and clutching that axe in a death metal grip. Eh, I kid Converse, shoe developers Critical Mass and Cute Circuit. These ARE pretty damn cool. All we need now is that Marshall sound coming from a jacket of some sort and it’s instant entertainment anywhere.

Sign up here to keep updated on the All-Wah. I predict a sellout and yeah, they better make ladies sizes too because asses will be kicked when the gal rockers can’t get their kicks and want to kick back.
– GW

George Crumb: Voice of the Whale – Soul Music of A Different Sort

Posted on June 23, 2016 by geelw

And now, ladies and germs… it’s time for a little dose of culture for today:

“I feel intuitively that music must have been the first cell from which language, science, and religion originated.” – George Crumb

George Crumb: Voice Of The Whale
coming to DVD on June 24th (MSRP: $19.99)

Robert Mugge’s 1976 portrait of renowned composer George Crumb featuring a performance of his composition “Vox Balaenae”

In 1976, “music filmmaker” Robert Mugge created his first music-related film. Titled GEORGE CRUMB: VOICE OF THE WHALE, it was a strikingly original, 54-minute portrait of Pulitzer Prize-winning and Grammy-winning composer George Crumb.

To celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary (it was first broadcast over PBS on June 6, 1978), MVD Visual is making available a newly remastered version on DVD, transferred to HD from the original 16mm film and lovingly restored. Now that you’re curious, go click this link to see a tiny bit of the film and if you like what you see, go order away at your leisure. Or faster than that if you prefer.

Horror of the Mundane Variety Keeps Me A Bit At Bay…

Posted on June 21, 2016 by geelw

Gyaaah. Photo credit: Walker Plus

Let’s see now: Other than that outstanding Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild demo I got to play, Pepcom surprising me with some fun stuff and some of E3’s better presentations, last week was a bit bumpy. Por ejemplo: My missing PS3? Still MIA. I know who the guy is and his address, but I can’t pop by at all to get my system. Got a call back from the police that I should pursue this legally (DUH, I know that!), which means the mail fraud and internet fraud paperwork I filed will take who knows how long to get through the system. Meanwhile, I lost my new-ish phone, so it’s back to my crappy old one until I can make enough to replace it.

There’s a bunch of other kick in the head, mule-style stuff that’s happened, but that’s Nunya Bizniz for the time being, as I don’t believe in diarying up everything any anything that drops on my head for entertainment purposes. I read YOUR blogs for that when I can. Okay, back to figuring stuff out and catching up on the backlog of stuff in a stack on a table nearby. See you all in a bit…

The Last Guardian: Finally Dated, The Wait Gets Less When-ish

Posted on June 19, 2016 by geelw

Okay. I’m back. Sort of. Got a LOT of stuff going on up this way I’ll yak about in a separate post, but let’s all just watch this gorgeous trailer for the long delayed and finally has a release date soon to be instant classic The Last Guardian. Fumeto Ueda and his team’s game will indeed be worth the wait and in my mind, it’s one of the reasons I play videogames. For me, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus were and still are two of the best game experiences from the past 20 years, and seeing this final game appear means I can stop worrying about whether or not it will be good. I trust the creator and his vision and that’s all one needs in this case.

The Last Guardian hits retail and digital October 25, 2016. Yes, that collector’s edition below looks mighty nice, doesn’t it? Yep.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Hands-On: No-Rule Hyrule Is An Amazing Place

Posted on June 15, 2016 by geelw

Yep. You need a Wii U. NOW. Or when the game comes out, no hurry! Um, the NX version is supposed to launch the same day, so maybe you can get one of those too?

This blurry photo is a result of my hands shaking because I was about ten seconds away from firing up the first of two demos. Oops.

Other than a trip into the rabbit hole a few years back after an early teaser trailer, I’d deliberately been ignoring any and all news, gossip and other speculative to factual bits of info about Nintendo‘s new Zelda game because for my purposes, going in cold makes for the best gaming experiences. When the opportunity arose to be one of 500 people who weren’t going to E3 to play the demo, I cleared my calendar and made sure I got my butt down to the Nintendo World Store bright and early to score a slot. Once that was done, the breath holding began with the hope the demo wouldn’t disappoint.

It didn’t. Although a mere 40 minutes was spent with it (two timed sections of 15 and 25 minutes each), the demo of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of the most memorable times I’ve had with any game I’ve ever played and definitely the most interesting Zelda game I’ve sampled.

The team has recreated the sense of wonder of the original NES game, but with a much larger and absolutely drop dead gorgeous open world Hyrule devastated by time and disaster starring a Link who’s been awakened after a 100-year slumber. How this ties into previous Zelda games is unclear at this point, but there are enough visual, aural and gameplay cues that give the new game a sense of familiarity longtime fans will get right away. The lucky ones chosen to play and plenty of onlookers at the demo event got to experience a game long in the making that’s going to feel fresh and incredible to longtime Zelda fans who may not play PC role-playing games like The Elder Scrolls or The Witcher series that offer massive maps and an amazing amount of quests to tackle. Breath of the Wild’s freshness brings manual jumping and climbing everything from trees to mountains to the franchise for the first time, no in-game companion/follower for Link (other than Amiibo support noted in the video below the jump), and a world where there’s a lot to do, but one in which the freedom to do as one wishes actually makes things MORE thrilling.

Continue reading →

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Trailer Leaves a Few Folks Breathless

Posted on June 14, 2016 by geelw

And that is a mighty good thing. Some (well, TOO many) gossipy babble fight web sites were going on for weeks about the decision by Nintendo to focus heavily on ONE game, complete with too many gullible gamers falling for the rumors that it was the ONLY game coming to E3 (it wasn’t). But as you can see, all that time and type in the rumor mill was wasted. Speculation sucks, doesn’t it? This game won’t. Back in a few hours with some hand-on impressions. Go watch the gameplay demo yourself over at Nintendo’s E3 site. It started at 1PM EST and will be going on pretty much all day. Back in a few hours with a few words on how it plays.

Hello, Zelda! The Crack of Dawn Gets That Golden Ticket in Hand

Posted on June 11, 2016 by geelw

Whee, you! I was initially going to pick a later date (Thursday, because I have another media event in the evening of the 16th), but thought better of that when I saw 6 and 7pm slots still open on Tuesday. The earlier times had been snapped up (3 to 5 PM), so I’m going to keep my fingers crossed my session runs fine, I don’t drool all over that Gamepad, and I get the most out of my demo time.

It REALLY pays to get out of bed early in the morning. Or not sleep at all and get one’s butt downtown to wait five hours or so for a once in a lifetime opportunity. May was crappy, but June is looking nicer at least on this front. Back in a bit, as I’m still a bit groggy… but also very happy.

Yeah, I wore this shirt today. One of the Nintendo NYC employees handing out the bracelets got a good chuckle from it. Yeah, yeah. I need a selfie stick, but I really hate them.